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Friday Feature: Saga

With Halloween now past and our jack-o-lantern buckets full of all sorts of the year’s most fascinating sweets, we return to our single, theme-less weekly features. How tedious…

This week’s feature has really been a long time coming. I’ve almost written on it a few times already, but I kept talking myself out of it because I really can’t think of the words to express how truly awesome it is.

Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’ currently-ongoing comic Saga.

It’s really just the perfect comic book. The writing is inspired, the art is approachable but unparalleled in quality.

The backdrop of the story is a sci-fi Romeo-and-Juliet-esque tapestry. Two warring societies have left almost all of the characters war weary by the time Saga begins.

Our main characters, of course, are members of opposite factions that have fallen in love. The opening page of Saga #1 features the leading lady, Alana, in labor, giving birth to her and her husband, Marko’s daughter, Hazel. From that moment on, the young family is on the run from both sides of the conflict, as well as some bounty hunters that would profit from capturing their newborn.

In a stroke of writing genius, all of the narration is done in Hazel’s voice from some undefined time in the future. Whenever she says things like “my parents…” instead of “Alana and Marko…” it adds a layer of affection to narration that I’ve never seen elsewhere.

If that little abstract doesn’t sell you on Saga, forget you read it and go buy it anyway. And tell your local comic book store that I’m not allowed to write recommendations without supervision, if that makes you feel better.

Seriously though. You need to read this comic.

Are you already a comic book lover? You should have already picked up Saga for goodness sake!

Have you never read a comic book in your life? This is only the best first-comic-you-ever-read.

“All that sounds good, but I can’t keep up with monthly titles.” Lucky for your lazy (or, more likely, financially impaired) self, there are already TWO collected editions of Saga available in any local comic book store worth its salt.

By way of fair warning, there’s a hearty dose of sex, bad language, and violence in the pages of Saga, and that earns it a “Mature” rating (as well as some conflict with online retailers like ComiXology and the Apple Store), so I’d say your only excuses for not reading Saga are either being really offended by sex, bad language, and violence or being a child.